


If I Were A Wise Man (I Would Do My Part)

by Remedial



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Care Homes, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Hurt No Comfort, Identity Issues, Loki Posing as Odin, Memory Alteration, Missing Scene, No Plot/Plotless, Okay it's not really angst or hurt, Old Age, POV Alternating, POV Loki (Marvel), POV Odin (Marvel), POV Outsider, POV Third Person, Sunny Acres Care Home, Thor: Ragnarok (2017), but it's definitely not fluff, unbeta'd we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21963091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remedial/pseuds/Remedial
Summary: It's Christmas Eve at the Sunny Acres Care Home. Some people get visitors, others don't.[Basically, Christmas time when Loki is posing as Odin, and when Odin is under Loki's enchantment at the care home before it gets demolished. ]
Relationships: Loki & Odin (Marvel)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	If I Were A Wise Man (I Would Do My Part)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think there's really a moral to this fic? It's not really Christmassy, per se, but the setting is Christmas?  
> Enjoy?

_Yet what I can I give Him,_

_Give my heart._

* * *

The Sunny Acres Care Home is, to put it mildly, underfunded, understaffed and under-visited. And, it’s certainly not for a lack of patients. It’s Christmas Eve and a grand total of two people he knows of have had visitors this year. Luckily, his room isn’t next to theirs, nor is he on speaking terms with these people. Not that he’s on speaking terms with any people, actually. 

He only finds this out through Helen, one of the staff, delivering his meagre portion of Christmas dinner; since it’s Christmas Eve, and because for some reason, it has been assumed that every patient must celebrate this festive tradition known as Christmas. She’s chatting idly, mostly to herself, the way most people do when they know the other person is unlikely to respond but to perform the interaction silently would be infinitely more painful. 

“Here’s your lovely Christmas dinner, Mr. Borson,” says she, arranging the things neatly on the plastic tray. “We’ve got some of that lovely turkey and some roast potatoes and parsnips and carrots, and a few brussel sprouts for you, Mr. Borson. Margaret’s been awfully busy in the kitchen, you know. Oh and we’ve even got some cranberry sauce.”

He’s barely listening. He knows that. She knows that. Just staring off into the distance. There’s nothing actually _wrong_ with Mr. Borson, according to the doctors who do their check-ups biannually, and his son, the one with the black hair and the suit, who put him here. He’s just a little difficult, at times. Never listening, never responding, sometimes wandering off, sometimes snapping violently at the littlest of things. Well, it’s normal. Just old age, really.

Anyway, who can blame him? It’s always “Mr. Borson” this, and “Mr. Borson” that, and “Where are you going, Mr. Borson?”, and “you shouldn’t wander around by yourself, Mr. Borson,” and “did you enjoy your dinner, Mr. Borson?” It truly is a wonder anyone can live in this place. Mr. Borson. And besides, he’s a grown man - he should be able to wander where he pleases. If he is old, which according to everyone he is, then he’s earned enough life by now to do as he likes. 

“Oh and today Mrs O’ Reily’s and Mr Donnel’s families came to visit them. Only for a short while, Mr. Borson, but still, it’s something. After all, it is Christmas Eve, Mr. Borson. Did you ever do anything with your son for Christmas, Mr. Borson? No traditions at all?” Mr Borson does not answer her, of course, but Helen is well versed at this and steamrolls on. “Oh, I’d love to be home for Christmas. You know, my family always have our feast on Christmas Eve. It’s a big dinner and we have all the family. I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Borson, sounds like a lot of chaos — well, it is, but we all get along. I never realised before, when I was younger, how rare that is. Not that we don’t got any drama, it’s just that we still love each other, you know. Christmas is so good, Mr. Borson, you know?”

And there is it! That “you know?” Why does everyone always assume that he knows? Or they don’t even really assume anything, they just put it on him, stick some random, trivial fact on him and expect him to just accept it. “Mr. Borson” - why is this even his name? He doesn’t remember anyone calling him it ever before, and now it’s every second word. 

According to the registers, Mr. Borson’s first name is Odin, accept, nobody at Sunny Acres is on first name terms, except the staff since they enjoy the illusion of familiarity. In which case they are always “Helen” and “Kitty” and “Peter” and never “Helen Macgregor” or even “Ms Chambers”. Anyway, all this means that Mr. Borson never hears the word Odin, and nobody ever says it. 

“Right,” says Helen, with a bland smile, “I’ll just leave this here, shall I? Have a good evening, Mr. Borson, I’ll come and collect your tray in about an hour or so.”

Mr. Borson lets out a grunt. Helen backs out of the room. 

The food is all right. Edible. Far from the best dinner Mr. Borson has had, but then, he can't quite picture what that would be. Mr. Borson is not hungry but he eats, the mechanisms of mealtimes making one feel more automata than person. 

The food is the kind which is soft enough that one can eat it with blunt knives and blunt forks, and old folks can digest without too much fear of choking from not chewing properly, from weak or fake teeth. 

The food is kind of bland because too much salt is bad for you, and too much sugar, and too much of anything.

Nevertheless, Mr. Borson eats his meal. He's thinking about this all the while — not actively — just because he's eating so he might as well be. 

_Did you ever do anything with your son for Christmas, Mr. Borson? No traditions at all?_

Well, for one, Mr. Borson does not quite remember having celebrated Christmas before. Besides, if this, what he's doing right now, eating this plateful of edibles and looking out the window at the falling snow, is celebrating, then he doesn't quite know if he's celebrated either. And then there's the whole issue of sons.

Well, clearly there was the young man who had brought him here — Luke was his name, he can remember that much about him. But, he did not call him _father_ either, so why should Mr. Borson call the man his son?

Doesn't he have any other children?

He's seen children before, of course. The family visitors with young children who come once a week or every two, playing with the few pieces of Lego and outdated toy cars they keep in the box especially for children. Or even, the few sweaty teenagers who volunteer a few Saturdays a month for an hour. 

He doesn't remember the young man, Luke, as a child, though. Though, he doesn't remember much at all about him.

Or himself, for that matter.

Either way, he doesn't feel it in himself to be the type to have children. It's not that he dislikes them or anything, just that they don't seem to fit right with him, both in practicality and in theory. 

Does one have to be a certain type to have children, though? Probably not, and he can't tell if it would be better or worse if such a necessity was the case. 

Whatever is actually the case, the young man, Luke, does not call him father, so Mr. Borson does not feel particularly inclined to call him son.

The said young man, Luke, doesn't speak much to him so much as _at_ him. There is always a certain restless quality to his expressions — another thing which makes Mr. Borson more and more convinced that this Luke is not his son. If he were to have a child, he would have raised them much surer of themselves than that. 

Instead, he always seemed seemed a mixture of brittleness and carefully ironic sweetness, which had come in waves all throughout the transaction between the alleged son to care home. 

There's a nauseous sound as the metal of his blunt, care home issued fork scrapes the bottom of his plastic tray. There's still some watery gravy and a little cranberry sauce around the sides of the tray, so Mr. Borson uses his knife's edge to gather it all into one corner, swirling it all nicely before sticking the blade into his mouth, sucking on the point. 

It's not sharp, of course, which is precisely why he decides to do this — though, it's not the best taste he's ever had, it's not bad. 

Of course, this is when Helen decides to come back to collect his tray. Perfectly timed, aside from this. A slip-up of pure carelessness. 

"Mr. Borson!" cries Helen, perfectly aghast. "What the he— what do you think you're doing!? Take that knife outta your mouth, right now!"

Mr. Borson's not really got a furious temper so much as a snapping one, and at her outburst, he chucks his knife at the tray. Helen can't help but jump, just a little, at the sudden clatter it makes.

"Fine then, wench! Take it!"

That's another thing about Mr. Borson, he's not American. Well, not originally, anyway — his son handed in all the correct paperwork and everything like that. But he's...maybe British? He's got one of those accents which makes it hard to tell but is posh enough that it sways you to think of Queen Victoria. And he's always using these outdated terms like _wench_ and — okay, sure, Helen works at an old folks home and she's not totally caught up with the times herself — but most others here aren't even that _archaic._

"There's no need for that kinda tone, Mr. Borson," Helen replies, after having gathered herself. "I'm only making sure you don't hurt yourself."

Mr. Borson mumbles something mostly unintelligible, looking rather sulky, for lack of a better term. Helen doesn't really pay it any mind.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Borson," she says, dismissing herself. 

It isn’t anything personal, Helen knows, as with most of the cases here. Mostly, what is is just a shame. A shame. That seems to be the most common phrase she associates with her job — what a fucking shame. At least there were a few visitors, this year.

Mr. Borson hasn’t had any visitors today — _no surprise there,_ she thinks. His own son had called him “ _father_ ”, none of the usual terms of endearment like _dad_ , or _papa_ , or _pops_ . Even _“old man”_ would have been less cold than the way Mr. Luke Borson had said the words “ _my father.”_

And the man, Mr. Luke Borson — none of that _“call me Luke_ ” bullshit — had seemed uptight about it too. Well, most folks seem that way, handing their parents over to the home, but it wasn’t any of that “don’t judge me” stuff that most people kept up with, with their excuses, but something else. Something which Helen still can’t put her finger on. It was a sort of cautious vindication — not that they don’t get plenty of those cases either. 

In any case, Mr. Borson doesn’t seem to be much of a family man — the senior Mr. Borson that is; young people always are family people, even if they dislike admitting it.

Even Helen, little ol’ Helen, who has not started any sort of family of her own yet, does not even have a boyfriend at thirty-five (and it’s certainly not for a lack of social pressure — parental, peer or otherwise), who is working Christmas Eve and the morning shift tomorrow, has probably got more comfortable familial relations than a lot of the folks here. And, obviously this comes with the setting of the job, and she really shouldn’t judge but...it’s still just a shame. After all, old as they are, they’re all just people — and what right has she to a happier Christmas than them? She’s earned it no more than the average person.

There’s a hard line, though, between being the sympathetic carer and getting too caught up in the what-ifs of someone else’s story. If the junior Mr. Borson’s attitude is anything to go by, the lack of visitors may well be justified. 

Justified. It’s hard to call it that, though — justified. It may well be justified for a son not to see his father, but less so for a father to be visited by no one, no matter who they are. 

And anyway, all Helen has to go by is Mr. Borson’s mildly shitty (albeit understandable given his situation) attitude, his occasional lack of an attitude at all, and Mr. Luke Borson’s handful of visits.

Mr. Luke Borson has only visited Mr. Borson four times (at least which Helen has been aware of) in the past eight months which Mr. Borson has been residing here, and even relative to the rest of the folks here, that’s not a lot.

He always comes, accepting none of the tea or coffee, that same caustically kind smile, long black hair slicked back, always wearing the same plain black suit as though preemptively attending his father’s funeral — though Mr. Borson is much further away from his funeral day than most folks here, according to the doctor. Always in and out in less than fifteen minutes.

Always a “Good morning, Ms MacGregor” (never “Helen”) and “how is everything today?”, and never truly meaning it. Not that many of the folks here mean anything when they visit — well, it’s either that they mean nothing they say or, on sentimental days like Christmas, everything. And if she says, “and how was your day, Mr. Borson?”, he will always return with a slow, “Busy. Busy — hectic as always, but nothing much, Ms MacGregor” as though to say, _isn’t that just life_ , and not in a good way. 

He’s an awfully odd fellow — not in any way Helen can quite distinguish, but then, that’s the same with most odd fellows. He never seems particularly happy, even by the standard of most visitors — not sad or even angry, either, just wound up real tight. Though, at least he _has_ visited. It’s not nothing, probably.

Still, it’s a shame, and it’s Christmas Eve. 

Perhaps tomorrow. 

Still, it’s not Christmas Eve everywhere. Well, it’s not anything everywhere — that’s all true enough. But especially with things like Christmas Eve, it’s not Christmas Eve everywhere. Helen MacGregor is making Kitty Chambers, Peter Farlough and Margaret Mason, and herself, hot chocolate because there are no disasters happening currently which pertain to them, and she thinks they all deserve a break before doing the washing up. Lightyears away, it is not Christmas Eve (less than lightyears away, there are places it is not Christmas Eve as well, of course) though. 

Mr. Borson (the junior), the senior Mr. Borson’s son (perhaps), Luke by some, Loki by more, Loptr by a few, Liesmith and Silvertongue by most, is sitting on a throne, not thinking about Christmas Eve (after all, it is not even Christmas Anything, to him). He is, however, thinking about names. Thinking about, what is in a name, what it means to be Odinson, or Laufeyson, or Friggason, or Borson or even Thanosson. 

Luke by some, Loki by more, and, right now, Odin to others. If everyone else perceives him so, wouldn’t that make him an Odin, too? Even if they are perceived to be the same Odin. He’s the god of Lies, though, not Truth, and at what point does the lie become the truth? How far must belief stretch? Even Lady Forseti — with all her wisdom — hasn’t said anything, though, he has been avoiding her.

Odin, the one with no doubt to his name, is still on Midgard, and Loki does go down to check on him sometimes. Mostly to see if he’s still alive, mostly — when the burden of ruling gets too much — to re-gratify himself for his decisions. It is, admittedly, a little sickening, seeing Odin like this.

Of course, he doesn’t usually go down in person, usually an illusion, a projection of some sort. Loki is a king, after all, lie or no, he is a king. He is the Allfather.

Odin always calls Loki “Luke”, like the other midgardians, always confined to painfully sad chair, never speaking more than one sentence at a time, never quite understanding what he’s saying, never calling Luke “son” — some things never change. If Luke — or Loki, or whatever — were a better person (if he were _Thor_ , and isn’t that at least one person he’ll never be) it wouldn’t make him feel better seeing Odin like that. Mortal. Brought down.

(Thor will undoubtedly be angry once he finds out, and he is the one who would have the most justification in being gratified at seeing Odin mortal and helpless, the roles having been reversed before.)

When Loki — or Luke — goes down to see Odin, he does not call him Odin, or Father, or Mr. Borson, or even Allfather (cos he’s not, anymore, is he?). He does not really call Mr. Borson anything. Anything other than — than _Father_ , or _Allfather_ feels wrong, and he’s not quite ready to pick at that yet, really.

“Hello,” he says instead, avoiding the address. 

“Luke,” Mr. Borson replies. “What do you want now? Do you know what time it is? It’s past visiting hours. It’s Christmas Eve.”

Luke squints for a second before turning to glance at the midgardian calendar hung below the clock on the wall in the room. It’s eight forty-five PM and it’s the 24th of December, indeed the eve of the midgardian celebration for one of its institutionalized belief systems. 

How sentimental. 

“That doesn’t matter,” Luke says, gathering himself because anything to do with this man is taxing be it avoiding or confronting him. 

“Of course it doesn’t matter,” Mr. Borson cuts in looking disgruntled. “That’s the problem with you people — nothing matters to you.”

“And this is the problem with you,” says Loki. “Nothing matters to you! You — you don't even understand what the Hel you are saying right now, do you? You don't even know who I am.”

“And whose fault is that?” huffs Odin, and he clearly doesn’t mean anything, as always, just saying it to have something to say, and too close to the truth as always. 

“Shut up,” says Loki. “Just shut up. Why don’t you ever just let me speak? Just shut up.”

“Of course I let you speak,” says Odin, “what else are you here to do?”

“Well, you never listen. You never listen, do you? Do you?” Loki says, practically hissing now, stumbling over speech and trying to find a foothold in his argument, like he always is with him. “Even when you are not talking, you never listen. You just wait for the other person to finish so you can pick them apart in that Norns-damned way of yours until I never know what is up or down, except that it was decided by you. At least with mother she would listen before painting her pictures. At least she tried to be kind. You know, it hate it, right? This job. Being king, being _you_ . And nobody really suspects a thing and I loathe that. That some part of me looks like you. But at least now — at least _I_ get to decide.”

There’s a pause, and it’s when Loki gets to the end of his breath that he steps forward, not quite sure if he should just deal the finishing blow now or continue waiting. Even though he doesn’t know what he would be waiting for. Even though he’s a right hypocrite because he’s saying words and he means every last one of them but not one of them means anything at all. 

Because even though he’s saying this to the Allfathers face, Mr. Borson seems no more Loki’s father than Loki’s guise seems to himself. Both half true, and half not. And it doesn’t feel as good, shouting it to Luke’s father, and he’s not sure how good it would feel shouting it to Odin — his own father, either. Even though he deserves it, still. 

“I’m tired,” says Mr. Borson finally. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“I hate you,” Loki says, even though he doesn’t, really, but he really, really does. 

“I know.” Mr. Borson nods. “Merry Christmas, son.”

“Shut up.”

There’s a knock on the door, so Loki — Luke, or whatever — disappears. Helen enters the room.

“I did not say come in,” says Mr. Borson.

“Oh, sorry Mr. Borson,” Helen replies, at least looking a little sheepish. “Am I interrupting anything? I was just going round to ask if anyone wanted anything to drink before bed.”

“Luke was here,” says Mr. Borson, instead of answering her intended, but not-actually-a-question question. 

“Luke — you mean your son, Mr. Borson?”

“Yes, that’s what I said, isn’t it, woman?” Mr. Borson replies, clearly annoyed. “I said Luke was here. He hates me. That’s what he said.”

Helen smiles gently, mentally noting herself to book the next round of check-ups soon, especially with it being winter and all. _It really is just such a shame_. “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you, Mr. Borson. It’s just that everyone’s busy Christmas Eve. Perhaps he’ll visit you tomorrow, or Boxing day, maybe.”

 _Such a shame_ , she thinks. 

“I’m not thirsty,” says Mr. Borson, “I don’t want anything. You can go now.”

It only takes Helen a little effort to keep the grimace from her face, wearing that same gentle, plastic smile. Not all the patients are like this — most aren’t in fact, but Mr. Borson is. If his son really does hate him, she wouldn’t be surprised, as terrible as it sounds. 

If Helen is being honest, Mr. Luke Borson will probably not visit tomorrow, or Boxing day, probably not for another month at least, given the trend and his _“Busy. Busy — hectic as always, but nothing much”_ schedule. 

Family is complicated, though. And nobody who hates their family does so without at least half loving them and, really, that’s the worst part. 

Anyway, it’s a miracle he visits at all. 

“All right, then,” she says. “Don’t hesitate to call us if you need anything, Mr. Borson.”

“Yes — Yes, I _know_.”

“Well,” and she’s half a pace out the door now. “Well, good night, Mr Borson. Merry Christmas.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you're all having a merrier time than these folks. <3 Happy Holidays


End file.
